COLLEGE PARK — South River didn’t have much time to learn about its opponent, Northwest, before stepping onto the court after earning the chance last Friday.

They’d heard a little about a few state titles.

“We knew they were good. We knew they had some hard hitters,” coach Maureen Carter said.

But the Jaguars gave the Seahawks a crash course in the first set, and South River did crash – hard.

“I think it was a lot of our attitude. In the first set, I don’t think we were as prepared,” Emily Speciale said. “Then we realized we really wanted it. We wanted to go out with a bang. We didn’t want to just lie down and die.”

The Seahawks fought, but fell, losing the Class 4A state semifinal in three sets, 25-10, 28-26, 25-18 on Monday.

Senior Samanta Tarabella had directed most of the Seahawks’ rallies, firing so many kills – 15, as well as a pair of aces – that her arm was wrapped tight in ice after it was all over. She’d averaged 4.4 kills a game this fall.

“It felt really good to be able to go out there and do [my] part,” she said.

For South River, contending at the state level for the first time since 1997, it was like trying to learn to drive a race car Northwest had been speeding around the track for five years. The Jaguars, three-time state champions, dealt a first game that pushed the last team standing from Anne Arundel County to reckon with its own weaknesses.

“They just executed a little bit better than us,” Tarabella said.

The Jaguars (17-1) were fully capable of drilling quick points, especially by the hand of Jenaisya Moore, a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year, who nailed 20 kills on the Seahawks on Monday. But even when South River maintained volleys, it often slipped, handing points to its opponents.

Fluidity didn’t come as easily to the Seahawks (16-3) at first as it did the Jaguars, who rushed ahead to a 21-6 lead.

There was, though, life in the Seahawks as the first set wound down. Tarabella pelted a kill into the floor, as well as senior Erin Canter, who had South River’s last point before dropping the set, 25-10.

As Carter drew her flock close, she had just one thing to say.

“I just said, ‘We deserve to be here, and we need to play like we deserve to be here,’” she said. “And they came out and did play like we deserved to be here.”

When play resumed, Northwest took the lead first. But the Seahawks killed it – literally.

Tarabella fired back with two kills, aided by an ace from Speciale. After another successful shot to the floor, Tarabella launched two back-to-back aces on the Jaguars, followed by a kill from Shannyn Mack.

Before Northwest called time, the Seahawks had jumped to an 8-2 lead.

“Definitely gave me another boost of confidence,” Tarabella said. “It gave me an opportunity to take hold of what was happening in the game, control something without having to have the whole rally run.”

And in a match with so little mistakes allowed so far, blocking at the net was crucial for the Seahawks. Northwest continued to fire on them, and, largely thanks to Moore, even pulled out a lead mid-game.

From there, the two swapped control. Tarabella continued to drive South River forward with kills, eventually reaching the 24th point.

Northwest wasn’t so keen on letting the Seahawks tie them, though. The Jaguars evened the count, and though Speciale struck for the go-ahead, Northwest claimed the game, 28-26.

To lose a set, especially one so necessary to keep the match alive, just one point away from victory could demoralize a team. And at first, it didn’t.

“The game just slipped through our fingers,” Carter said. “27-25, that was a turning point. We came back in the third set and we kept fighting – but.”

The Seahawks kept close to their foes for the first dozen points. But around the mid-point, the Jaguars started to string multi-point streaks together. South River, on the other hand, found themselves shooting balls into the net – and getting just as mentally strung up about it.

There were pockets of renewed fire – as Canter fired a kill, Tarabella rushed over to her teammate, gripped her shoulders and exclaimed, “Love that!”

Even so, the Jaguars put together a strong 21-13 advantage. Without much hope of winning it all, the Seahawks followed Speciale’s plan. They didn’t want to lay down. They wanted a bang as they walked off for the last time.

Led off by a point from Speciale, South River went on a four-point run to cut the deficit to four.

But Moore came back with a pair of court-smacking kills to reach point 24.

“It was too hard to stop her,” Carter said.

When it was over, and the Seahawks were heading back to Edgewater with no more games to play, they were still satisfied with the success they’d had. No one, Speciale said, had predicted such an abundant year for them. They’d dispatched their rival, Arundel, and had been able to reach a point no other South River volleyball team could in any of the girls’ lives.